Best Cloud Storage Providers of 2019

Cloud storage has evolved from an enterprise service into a service used by millions of households and small businesses all around the world. As users continue to accumulate countless documents, images, and video and audio files, demand for online storage services is on the rise. Once they load their files to the cloud, users want to be able to access those files from any location and device. In order to help you choose between the numerous options available, we conducted thorough research of the best cloud storage providers on the market and presented our findings below. Please note that all of the services listed are Mac compatible. See our rankings chart below, along with our latest cloud storage reviews, to help you choose the right service that best meets your needs.

The research on this site has been conducted by a technically savvy team of reviewers. They understand the various features and technologies involved in cloud storage, and are therefore equipped to properly evaluate what each company has to offer. However, they also understand that typical users may not need many of the fancy features offered by the top cloud providers, and therefore give different weight to various attributes when they conduct their reviews. For this reason, you may notice that ease-of-use is given much more attention than security. This is not because they believe that security of your digital files is unimportant. Rather, they understand that the differences in the security measures taken by many of the best cloud storage services is negligible and of little consequence to most users. Ease-of-use, on the other hand, is a crucial attribute which can make or break your satisfaction with a service. We believe this balance between understanding the product and the consumer ultimately helps our users, and the cloud industry as a whole.

Cloud Storage Providers – The Top Brands

When most consumers think about the best known cloud storage companies, the names that usually come up are Mozy, Dropbox and Carbonite. As with many other categories, consumers often confuse the quality of a specific product or service with the skill of that company’s marketers. The best known brands in the online storage industry are those that have the largest advertising budgets. Mozy, for example, is owned by EMC, a Fortune 500 company with tens of thousands of employees. While our research on the best cloud storage providers did include looking into the company and technology resources behind the service, we decided to focus more on the value and overall user experience they provide to their consumers.

When evaluating a cloud storage company, we suggest you look at the full list of features they offer, as well as the support (and of course the price). The pricing models vary from company to company, but in general, most brands offer several packages from which to choose. The most basic packages offered are typically sufficient for consumers looking to store their personal files in the cloud. If you have many video and audio files, or if you are looking to purchase cloud storage for your small business, you may need to opt for one of the more expensive plans. Most of the the services listed in our rankings allow users to start off with a basic plan and upgrade later on if their online storage needs change.

Cloud Provider Rankings

This site analyzes, reviews and ranks many cloud storage providers in an effort to provide greater transparency into the offering that each company provides. The goal is to break through all the “marketing noise” you may encounter when looking at the website of a cloud company. We aim to provide detailed information and rankings on these companies, ultimately allowing you to find the right online storage provider for your needs. The rankings are based primarily on the pricing, features, ease-of-use, security, and customer support offered by each provider. After reading the reviews here, your are encouraged to visit the website of the cloud providers in our rankings in order to learn more and verify the information for yourself before making a purchase.

How We Evaluate Cloud Storage Providers

Features

When looking at the features included in the various packages offered by the top cloud storage providers, we focused primarily on those most relevant for day-to-day use. Any feature related to storing, sharing and accessing digital files was analyzed and given considerable weight in our rankings based on its usability and reliability.

Ease of Use

Regardless of how impressive their technology platform is or how low their price is, a cloud storage company that provides its users with a clumsy interface is not one you want to use. We analyzed the control panels and dashboards of each service in our reviews and gave significant weight to how well each provider scored on this attribute.

Pricing

Although cloud storage is a service that merely costs a few dollars a month, there’s no reason not to bargain hunt and search for the best value. We looked at the prices and packages offered by each cloud storage provider and gave significant importance to this attribute when rating each service.

Security

When you store your sensitive files in the cloud, you’ll want to make sure that your provider takes the proper steps to protect your files from hackers and from being lost in the event that their servers are damaged. The cloud storage providers we reviewed mostly take similar precautions to protect their customers’ files, so we verified that each provider is indeed employing the standard safeguards.

Support

In our analysis, we looked at the technical support provided by each of the leading cloud storage providers. This includes surveying which channels of support they provide such as chat, email and phone, as well as testing the level of responsiveness and professionalism of their actual customer support staff.